Lithography is a known process conventionally used in the manufacture of integrated circuit (IC) devices and their subcomponents. Lithography may be one of a series of processes used to fabricate an IC device. Developing empirical models for performing physical processes such as lithography/printing processes frequently involves the iterative tasks of developing a model, measuring physical data about a product (e.g., a printed product) formed based on the model, and then updating the model according to the measured data. However, developing the model with inaccurate or misinformed data can cause devices that are printed under the guidance of the model to have incorrect dimensions, which in turn can degrade IC performance, or cause outright failure.
For example, current approaches for modeling physical processes in lithographic mask layouts assume that a known form for a process model has been chosen, and implicitly consider this choice to be fixed. These approaches use a specific selection of process model terms to model the lithography/printing process. However, the cost and time required to conduct measurements for calibrating the model(s) can be significant.